


Switch

by Chiclet



Category: Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman | Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
Genre: M/M, One Shot, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 20:49:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7729210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiclet/pseuds/Chiclet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WHAT IF:  Joe and Ken switched bracelets by accident?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Switch

I can't get warm.

Its thirty five hours and change later and I can't close my eyes without feeling like I'm going to fall off the edge of the world. I've gotten about six hours of sleep under my belt in the last two days, most of it snatched in half hour chunks, shaking myself to sleep under blankets that can't trap enough heat to help.

I'm supposed to be the big bad Condor. Screw that. I feel like my bones are solid  _ ice _ .

Lick my lips without thinking about it and they immediately sting. Modern fucking technology saves my sorry ass from losing toes, fingers, hands to advanced frostbite but can't manage to cure the worst case of chapped lips I've ever had.

Remind myself I should be grateful. Damn it, I am grateful. Stare at my hands on the kitchen table and try not to feel surreal as I flex them again, remembering what it felt like not to feel them.

I've kept it together on the surface. I know I have because I'm not locked up in the middle of ISO's security. Held down and buried in the middle of a government machine large enough to swallow the world if Galactor doesn't manage to do it first.

The debriefs were easy enough. I've done them so many times now that I can answer the questions in my sleep, since nobody really gives a shit what my opinions are anyways. Easier just to let Ken write the reports and give the speeches since he's so damned good at them, and all I have to do is nod my head when I can't get away with a shrug. Non involvement pisses Hakase off which is all to the good as far as I am concerned.

They threw a psych at me as well, standard debrief procedure. This one was a medium grade white coat with just a little bit of the shiny patina still remaining in the corners of his eyes to tell me he wasn't that far away from the factory where they must churn them out in clean batches, stamped twelve to a box. He wouldn't have had a hope in hell with any of us and he sure didn't stand a chance with me.

Ken would have sat there and played questions back until the guy would have been the one to end up confessing his sins, asking for absolution. Ryu would have dusted off his country bumpkin accent and played the naive, trusting fool. It works. I've seen more than enough quiet reports questioning his suitability for the team.

Jun, of course, would have just sat there looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Jinpei's trick is to make like a butterfly in a power dive, all action and no higher cognitive function.

Me, I have to go with what works for me. The mindfucker's office was even mostly intact when I stormed out, for which I give myself brownie points. It probably didn't earn me any check marks on the positive side of my next performance review but it's not like I actually fucking care. Demotion is not exactly an option in my position.

Demotion for any of us means a pine box and a posthumous medal. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

The temper tantrum earned me a personal one-on-one with Hakase though, harder to fool than any mindfucker, giving me the usual lecture about needing to keep the support staff untraumatised. Don't know how I managed to bullshit my way through that one but I guess I did because I'm here now. On the outside.

Sitting at my kitchen table and staring at my hands like they're going to tell me something important.

The tips are still black under the nails. It's residual blood clotting that the medicos told me will go away on its own as my body flushes out the last of the dead flesh. Regeneration drugs working miracles in my system, blindly focused on saving me from myself.

A shudder racks my body before I can stop it.

So fucking cold. I've managed to drain both water tanks dry in the last twenty four hours and that's it until I drive the trailer back to civilization and drink a reservoir dry.

Vision narrows and for a moment all I can see is white clouds of breath in front of my face, condensing into ice on my visor. The air in the trailer turns knife cold in my lungs.

Forget that I'm sitting safe on the ground. Forget everything because I'm trapped, just for a heartbeat, between metal and sky, nauseous with altitude and the desperate need to hold on.

Come back to myself with my hands clenched so hard my arms are aching. The cheap table creaks in dangerous protest as I shake, once and hard like some sort of wet dog. Worse, I can feel the muscle spasms, calmed an hour ago by water hot enough to kill an unlucky crustacean, beginning again.

"Fuck!"

Will my body to savage stillness. No dice; the fine trembling continues unabated. There's a taste in the back of my throat that hurts to swallow.

Fear. Rage. The sick understanding that at some point, thirty five hours and change ago, I'd gone from  _ how long can I hold on? _ to  _ how long before I fall? _

Even the Kagaku Ninjatai have limits.

I'm laughing suddenly under my breath and it's not very funny. Think crazily that Katse would give his left nut to know that.

Isn't dying of cold supposed to be peaceful? I've got some stupid thought that it's supposed to be just like going to sleep.

Screw that. Screw that all to hell and back. Every time I close my eyes I don't think about sleep, I think about falling. That I didn't manage to hang on and I'm fucking falling a thousand miles back to earth, wings shredding because the Birdstyle wasn't meant to deal with all the shit I put it through and symbiosis only goes so far.

Fifty million miles up in the air with the air tight enough to be the thinnest sliver of life against my frozen face. With only the visor keeping me alive, feeding me reclaimed oxygen but it's freezing over, ice coating its delicate workings as each breath I struggle to take shuts it down.

Then another one of the body numbing shudders rips through me and something breaks inside, hard and painful. I'm on my feet in a surge, shoulders hunching as I cross my arms across my chest to still the helpless tremors.

Fuck. Fuck. The walls are too damned close and I can't breathe.

I have to get out of here before I start taking things apart with my bare hands just to prove that I can. Just so I can feel alive.

 

 

* * *

 

My eyes are dry and burning as I turn the headlights off and coast to a grudging stop.

I don't know how long I've been driving but it’s still dark, not even a hint of sunrise along the smudge of the horizon. Long enough though that the air doesn't smell like trapped dust anymore, kicked out by filters struggling to cope with roads that have more in common with avalanche debris than city planning. The cockpit is baking hot and the skin on my face is tight in reaction. I must have had the heater on full blast the whole way.

Look up as my eyes clear and somehow I'm not surprised to discover I'm at Ken's place.

The red lights of the dashboard aren't saying anything anymore. No tachs to measure, no overheat warnings; all the suspension gauges and fuel consumption needles are idling silent. All I can feel is the motor thrumming along my spine, moving up my legs and into my brain as if I'm hardwired into the machinery. The gear shift vibrates under my hand.

She's hot and more than willing to keep going.

Instead I turn the key and watch as everything dies. The red diffusion protests the longest, caressing the edges of my fingers before finally fading away. Without the sound of the motor to disguise anything I can hear the beat of blood in my ears. Shake my head, but the unwanted timpani doesn't go away.

I bet Ken's been sleeping for hours. I can't see any lights in the windows, there's not even the pretense of movement. The house and attached hanger as quiet as any ancient tomb.

An unwanted shudder runs down my body and gooseflesh rises. My fingers ache dully where they're gripping the steering wheel.

I'm a passenger in my own body. On autopilot, I get out of the car and the gravel under my boots crunches like ice. The snick of the car door closing echoes like a distant thunderclap. I have no idea what I'm doing here even as I thrust my hands in my pockets and start walking.

The air smells strange. It's a weird juxtaposition of growing things and asphalt, oiled metal and dirt. The walk up to the front door seems to take forever and absolutely no time at all.

Then I'm there, reaching out for the wooden frame. My fingers uncurl themselves to touch the rough surface, running my bruised fingers over the splinters as my brain blanks out.

I need an excuse to be here. Can't bang on the door in the middle of the fucking night without some sort of reason. He's going to be pissed at me as it is for waking him up.

It opens as I'm standing there, trying to figure out what cover to use, and I'm caught staring back as Ken looks at me with sleep tousled hair and eyes that are only charcoal smudges in his face. My hand falls away, scraping against the splintered veneer.

He's shirtless, bare feet wide against the floor and his hair is too dark to be believed. It makes his skin look whiter than it is, pale against the backdrop of silence. He's a ghost of himself, standing there like some sort of statue or phantom apparition.

Wet my lips without thinking and wince as they crack again.

His voice is real though, slicing through the night air like a clean razor.

"Joe." It's only my name but something in the way he says it runs a frisson down my spine. Shake my head, trying to make the feeling go away. Put my hands back in my pockets because damned if I know what else to do with them.

"Yeah."

And for the life of me I can't think of a damned thing else to say. His hand is braced against the edge of the jamb and I find myself fascinated by the dark shadow playing along the knuckles. What the hell am I doing here again? A wave of exhaustion sweeps through me unexpectedly, hard enough that I sway with it.

Catch myself before Ken notices. Have some garbled thought about not screwing up in front of the Commander. Even though it's just Ken there, bare chest and feet and hair in six million directions and about as far from the Eagle's wings as he can possibly get.

Not that they ever really leave him, I think stupidly. Find myself wondering if he's ever pushed his Birdstyle to the point of failure. I wonder if he'd ever tell me if he did.

An expression crosses his face but it's gone before it really registers. A frown, maybe. Exasperation? Fuck, I don't know. Maybe he's wondering if he can close the door fast enough.

Open my desperate mouth to say something, anything, I don't care what, but he beats me to it.

"Come on. Inside."

Next thing I realize I'm walking down the hallway, following the hard line of his back ahead of me. He's totally silent in his bare feet and I grasp after the feeling that I'm following a hallucination in some weird, fucked up dream.

Wouldn't that be bizarre? Serve me right too. That I'm home and I really am just dreaming that I came here.

As dreams go it's not a bad one, I think. No blood for one thing, no screaming. Just Ken and the gliding walk of his that makes him look like he's dancing on air.

Everything looks different in the dark, at once clearer and farther away than things ought to be by rights. I know this place though, better than I know my own and I bet I could navigate with my eyes shut. I'm almost tempted to close them and see if I do wake up in my own bed, shaking.

Blank out again and when my vision opens we're in the monochrome kitchen and there's a glass in my hand. Hard alcohol burns my nose, the rotgut that Ken keeps around for when I come over. Habit brings it to my lips and tosses it back.

Fuck, yes, I'm awake. The cuts on my lips sting like a son of a bitch as the alcohol licks a fire down my throat. There's a heartbeat of anticipation before it hits my stomach and then it rebounds, gleefully carving its way through my body in tingling waves.

Manage to scrape my voice back together from outer space. "Fuck, Ken. What the hell is this?" Not the damned usual, that's for sure.

"Jun left it here. A present from one of Ryu's uncles last time she was visiting. It's some sort of secret family recipe." He tosses his own back without flinching as far as I can tell. I can't seem to get the taste out of my mouth.

"No wonder Ryu's so big. Self preservation." Sniff the glass cautiously now that I know what was in it. "You'd need some serious bulk to absorb this." There's no real smell so it must have been distilled more than a few times. I can't even tell what it was made from. Fish, for all I know.

Ken looks at me across the gray counter, and one eye catches a stray reflection. There's a question sinking into the silence and I raise the glass to let the last burning drops trickle over my tongue.

The mindfuckers, the government ordered brain scramblers are always wanting to know how I feel. Like I'm supposed to be able feel anything at all.

Why the hell I just thought that, I have no damned idea. Put the glass down on the counter and just find myself staring at it, not wanting to look up. The glass reflects almost nothing, the rim only barely visible in the darkness. Like it disappeared as soon as I stopped touching it.

He cocks his head and the weight of the motion eddies through the air, making it hard to shake off. "Joe."

"Yeah?" When in doubt, stall for time.

"It's four in the morning."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It's late."

Reach out and run a finger over that single, visible edge. He waits for me patiently, pulling the silence back into himself like it's a fishing line. We play this game a lot, but he's got an unfair advantage most of the time since he's just better when it comes to waiting. Most of the time I'm the one to cave first.

Tonight is no exception.

"I couldn't sleep. Went driving and ended up here." I learned a long time ago that the best way to keep Ken off balance is to feed him enough truth at the beginning that he can't figure out exactly when I start lying. "I'm sorry I woke you up."

He's quiet, as if listening to something else instead of my half hearted apology. Push the glass back to him across the counter with a slow forefinger and he blinks. I can see the smudge of his lashes lowering and it does something to his face, closes him off. Suddenly he looks like a stranger.

He refills my glass without saying anything though, leaving his own untouched. The faint starlight from the window catches along his arms, slides muscle like liquid over the bones of his wrist.

"I wasn't sleeping anyways," he finally says. He pauses for a moment and then looks at me. "You staying the night?"

"No." The words are barely out of my mouth when a shiver arcs through my body, snapping my teeth shut. The sound is too loud in my head, echoing like laughter. "No," I repeat, trying to grasp after the words before they fall out of my brain. "I gotta get back to the trailer. Mind if I borrow your shower first?"

Fuck. Where did that come from? But I can feel the water suddenly, sluicing over my skin in a convulsion of heat. My hands spasm involuntarily.

"My... shower."

"There's no hot water at my place. Element's not working. Or something."

Shit, I'm babbling. He's just staring at me and I have no damned idea what's running through his head now. I can guess though and panic flutters under my tongue. Ken's often deliberately blind to things he doesn't want to see but he's never been anything close to stupid. I must sound like a lunatic. On his doorstep at four in the morning just to wash my hair.

"Never mind. I'll get it fixed tomorrow."

Reach blindly for the full tumbler even though I know alcohol is a bad idea. False courage, false warmth. Better than nothing I suppose. I'll drink it and get the hell out of here before I do something his Boy Scout code tells him he has to take official notice of.

His hand touches the top of the glass just as my numb fingers close over the cold sides, preventing me from moving it.

"Joe." When did his voice get so deep? "I don't mind. Take a shower. Stay if you like. You know where the blankets are."

Nod my head in a reflexive jerk, not sure if I can trust my voice to a reply. His hand moves away and I continue the interrupted motion, picking up the glass.

The smooth line of his jaw flashes as he tilts his head an iota out of true. His hand reaches out and his fingers close over my shoulder, nearly burning me with their heat.

"If you like. Stay." He shakes me then, just enough to pull an inarticulate noise out of my throat, some compromise between agreement and protest. "All right?"

"All right." Tell myself I'm not actually promising anything.

This time when he moves he makes noise, a susurrus as his feet glide over the floor. It has to be deliberate but for the life of me I can't figure out why. Watch the straight line of his back retreat as I tilt the glass up, the alcohol going down in a single burning rush. This time I know so much better than to breathe.

 

* * *

 

I have no idea how long it's been when I finally crawl out of the shower. It feels like I've been breathing steam forever though, until my lungs are wrinkled with water. Inexhaustible, incredible warmth. There's definitely something to be said for being hooked up the city water system, even if it means you can't hitch the house up and move down the road anytime if you want to.

But even fish have to come up to breathe sometime and I turn off the taps with sodden reluctance. I was actually starting to fall asleep, braced against the old tile with the water running in waterwalls down my back. It feels so damn good to be warm again.

Blink the moisture off my eyelashes and grab the single towel, pressing my face into the rough folds. It smells like laundry soap and even faintly like Ken. It's oddly disturbing in my floating reality, like he's actually there or something.

Ignore the feeling and run the threadbare cotton over my head, trying to get the worst of the water out of my hair. It's a haphazard effort at best and I'm pretty sure all I'm managing to do is make tangles.

Eventually give up and squish onto the floor. My clothes are in a damp pile and it's a struggle to get into my underwear and jeans. By the time I figure out, halfway through the operation, that I should have done a better job drying my legs it's too late to back down. The stiff material fights me the whole way and takes nearly all the energy I have left.

The shirt's almost as bad, and it takes me three attempts to get the damn sleeves to line up the right way. I'm about ready to tear them off when I finally find my hands again. Fumble with the buttons and even manage to get a few done up but realize something's wrong when I run out of holes before I run out of buttons. Shit.

Run a hand through the tangled mess of my hair. Screw it. I don't care if it looks like Jinpei helped me get dressed. The fashion police can write me a ticket tomorrow.

I'm about four seconds away from a total crash, suddenly and overwhelmingly tired. I guess I'm staying the night after all.

Peer at the mirror but it's fogged over so I can't tell exactly how bad I look. Clue in that part of the reason the walls look a little weird is because there's water running down them in slow drops. It looks like they're melting.

Fuck, I really must have been in here awhile. Ken's gonna kick my ass when the paint starts to peel.

Opening the door to the hallway is a little bit like opening the door to the Arctic, there's such a temperature difference. It wakes me up briefly, enough that I can get my legs to work anyways and I stumble into corridor.

Start to head in what I hope is the right direction, trying to remember if the spare blankets are anywhere along the way. I'm seeing more than I did before, a lighter gloom on the walls and it occurs to me that the sun must be coming up somewhere.

It's only when I'm staring blankly at a wall that looks suspiciously like a door that I figure out that I turned the wrong way down the hallway and I'm not back in the living room.

Ken's room. There's light sneaking across my toes.

He's awake and I'm pushing the door open before I can even pretend to think about it.

He looks up, startled but hiding it, adrift in a sea of paper and lumination. There's a pen behind his ear, forcing a twig of hair to stick straight out. He's got a clipboard balanced precariously on one knee but he's still bare chested, bare footed. He looks like he ought to be the poster boy for Office Worker Weekly.

It's too easy to lean against the door and cross my arms.

"Whatcha doing?"

He looks around curiously, as if casting for an answer in the drifts. "Working," he replies.

"At," I peer at the alarm clock, "just after five in the morning?"

He just stares at me like it's supposed to be obvious or something. For all I know, he works at five in the morning all the time. Maybe it just seems weird to me.

His bedroom's not that big and I'm twitching a sheet of paper off the bed before he can stop me. "Hey," he protests but I'm already scanning the words.

"Shit, Ken, you can't use 'radar spoking' in a committee report - they've got the combined brains of granola. Nobody's gonna know what the hell you're talking about."

"Hakase will," he points out logically. Express my opinion of that with a pointed exhalation.

"Target complex... observable category of data... slip indicator factors... what are you trying to do here, bore the analysts to death?"

"Actually, yes."

I'm sitting down on the foot of the bed and looking through the scattered leaves for the start of the report. Ken relieves me of the one in my hand but that's okay, it's easy enough to just grab another.

"I haven't seen this much double talk since we spiked General What-His-Face's transport with timed stink bombs and had to draft an apology. What's the deal?"

"Mission assessment report. Hakase wanted it on his desk yesterday." It's not really an answer but that's okay, because I don't really care. He runs a hand through his hair, dislodging the pen and nearly losing the clipboard.

The distraction lets me pretend to read the next sheet but the words are just blurring together, making no sense. Ken's crisp letters are marching all over the page in formation. "You gotta be slipping, Ken. You usually churn these things out over orange juice. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to write them in English too." Squint at the page and nearly forget to open my eyes again.

"Not this time." He firmly picks the paper out of my fingers and starts shuffling them all out of my reach. Somehow or other I'm on my back, staring at the ceiling. When did I decide to lay down?

"What's so special about this one?" Turn my head and there's a piece of white drifting in my front of my nose. Snag that one before he can capture it and discover I'm holding it upside down. Not a problem. Maybe it'll make sense this way.

He sighs and one foot nudges my hip. "Joe. I'm burying the report. I have to submit something legitimate looking though otherwise Hakase will be forced to take notice."

"Why?"

"Because Hakase wants everything above board. Post mission logs are always recorded and on file and this one is no exception."

"No, not that." Wave a hand in the air and realize that it's comfortable in here. The single lamp casts a small glow of light, making fantastic shadows on the ceiling." Why're you burying it?"

He doesn't answer. Perversely proud of myself for keeping my eyes open long enough to watch him lean over, put the clipboard with its safely attached paperwork on the floor. Muscle stretches with the movement and scars crawl over his ribs. It's weirdly fascinating to watch. I wonder if that's what I'd look like from this angle.

Probably. Blackbird claws are damned fucking sharp, even through Birdstyle.

He turns back and my eyes catch on a flash of paler skin. A band across his left wrist, a wristwatch tan line. Look over his shoulder and yeah, he's got his bracelet on the nightstand.

Boy Scout Ken. Probably still has the sheet meticulously clipped somewhere close by, its little boxes ticked off in regimented series. Somebody, somewhere took a best guess at how much time we need apart from it. The minimum divorce necessary to preserve us from the radiation streaming from the small piece of quasi-metal like an invisible sun's corona.

We're lab rats, after all in the biggest experiment ever to be rammed down the world's collective throat. They don't even know what the transform field does to us, no fucking clue, each time we use it. Blood activated, skin induced and the bracelet's the key to it.

I keep mine on. We're screwed anyways, there's no point trying to pretend otherwise. Ken likes to follow the book though. I think it makes him feel like he's got a grip on things.

He frowns when he sees I've still got a single piece of paper in my hand.

"Gonna sleep with that?"

Toss it at him but it's barely a flutter. He fields it easily enough and it follows the others to the precise floor.

"Why're you burying the report?" My eyes are nearly closed again.

He sighs, more a shifting of his shoulders than anything else. His foot nudges my hip again, toes curling. "You deserted." His voice is soft, noncommittal.

"Your point?"

He sighs. "Desertion is a court martial offence."

"Worked though, didn't it?"

"Not the point, Joe. I turned around and you weren't there. The Chair Force gets really excited over words that sound like court martial."

It's surreal. I'm hearing him but it's like my brain isn't listening. Still, there's an echo of anger.

"Screw you, Ken. You were there. The Bird Missiles weren't doing a goddamn thing and the fucking thing was faster than we were. It was only a matter of time before we took a rocket up the ass."

"Doesn't matter. You nearly got yourself killed playing hero." There's something dark in his voice and it hangs me up for a moment. Shake it off and haul my brain back to the important part.

"And you don't? You're always charging off like you're the Lone Ranger."

"That's what they pay me for."

"Fuck. We get paid?"

Crack an eye and yeah, he's laughing. Tuck an arm behind my head and grin back. His foot rocks me a little more sharply and I discover I've closed my eyes again.

"Joe?"

Make some noise of probable agreement.

"You're a pain in the ass."

"Yeah."

"Guess you're not sleeping on the couch, huh."

"Uncomfortable. You can have it."

There's a noise over my head, exasperation and annoyance. But damn it. I'm warm. Ken can string me up for dereliction of duty tomorrow if he wants. Right now I'm going to sleep.

"Move, Sleeping Beauty."

The toe in my ribs is pretty damned insistent. Manage to haul myself awake enough to understand that he just wants me to make more room. I can accommodate that. I even get my own pillow by the simple expedient of stealing his.

The bed's too narrow for the both of us but I'm beyond caring. A blanket settles over my shoulders and the light switches off. Then Ken settles in next to me and the furnace of his body tumbles me over the edge of sleep.

 

* * *

 

_ I'm dreaming. _

_ It's okay though because I know it. Everything's much too clear to be real, way too blurred to be honest. I'm crouching down behind Hakase's office chair and there's the sound of gunfire somewhere. All I've got is a water pistol and it keeps jamming on me. _

_ Boots in quicktime echo and I move to the other side of the bulky desk, trying to see anything. Sure hope that's reinforcements because I'm seriously outclassed here. Start looking through Hakase's desk for pencils, pens, anything with a point. I can throw those. Shit for aerodynamics but I'm not picky. Paper clips. _

_ The fish swim by and I bat a persistent one away from my ear. Jun crawls up to me, breathless. She's holding a clipboard and Ken's birdrang is jammed into her belt. _

_ "Report, Junie. What's going on?" Peer around the desk but I can't tell where the door's got to, there's just too damned much haze in the way. The stupid fish is back in my face again, blowing kisses. "Is top deck secure? Ken?" _

_ She tucks a flip of hair behind her ear and rocks back on her heels. "Secure as bugs in rugs." The smug grin on her face lights everything around her. Then she reaches out and filches the gun right out of my hand. _

_ "Hey!" Make a futile lunge to retrieve it as she tucks it into a belt loop. "I was using that!" She's got Jinpei's bolas around her neck but they're very small, necklace ornaments. Catch a glimpse of the 'Phoenix dangling as a bracelet charm. _

_ She whips the clipboard up and there's a pen poised in her hand. _

_ "Tell me Joe, how does that make you feel?" _

_ "What?" _

_ She makes a noise of ugly satisfaction and scribbles something down. Then she bounces up and her hand reaches out, hauling me to my feet. Her fingers are burning warm in my grip. _

_ "Come on! We're going to miss the fun." She's pulling me forward and I can't say no, I've never been able to say no to her. The footsteps dog us through the hallways, always just ahead or behind but never quite where we are. _

_ Everything looks the same, over and over again, no matter how many corners we turn. The damn fog hides everything and I realize that we're lost, that I'm lost and it’s getting colder. My breath starts to mist in front of my face and that scares the hell out of me. _

_ The footsteps behind know. They merge into just one thing, quicker, more excited. I'm out of breath now, trying not to breathe too hard and she's ghosting ahead of me, pulling me along with the pressure of her grip. _

_ We've left the fish behind and I miss the one that liked me so much. _

_ "Junie, where are we going?" Desperately look for a place to hide, to put my back to the wall. I wonder if I can get the gun back. I'll make the fog go into the gun, shoot smoke instead. "Where's everyone else?" _

_ "Hurry up!" It's no answer but she keeps tugging me onward. "You're going to make me late!" She flashes me an angry look over her shoulder and there's something wrong with her eyes but her fingers are linked warm and solid in mine. _

_ Shake my head and something crackles, breaking away. Ice. There's ice in my hair. _

_ "We gotta go back. Junie!" Dig my heels in and stop dead in the middle of nowhere. I'll take the footsteps. They stopped when we did though and I'm straining my ears listening, trying to figure out where they are. _

_ Suddenly she yelps in excitement and her fingers slide away as she dances forward. "Hurry up, Joe!" She's almost singing, gone around the next corner with a wave of black hair whipping around her shoulders. _

_ "Junie! Damn it!" We can't get separated. Something bad will happen to us if we get separated and those are Ken's words, Ken's fears whispering in my ear and I run after her, afraid that the footsteps have somehow gotten ahead of us, gotten her. _

_ Around the corner the world just... ends. _

_ She's standing at the edge, her hands stretched out over the boiling, seething smoke. She's laughing; young enough to break herself on the joy. _

_ "Shit! Jun, what're you doing?" Reach out, grab her by the arm. "You're going to fall!" _

_ But it's Berg Katse that turns and laughs. And it's still Jun's voice, still her eyes behind the venomous mask. Fingers sink into the flesh above my elbow. _

_ "You're the one that can't hold on," she reminds me. Then I'm falling and Katse's laughing, the horrible sound following me down into darkness. _

_ "Bird go!" _

_ The incantation falls from my numb lips, a prayer for vengeance. My arm is awkward, pinned to my side somehow. I can't raise it and I can feel panic crawling up my throat. "Bird go!" _

_ Nothing. No lightning at my fingertips, no pain to catch my blood on fire. Wrong, wrong, I'm doing it wrong and I'm going to hit the ground and it's going to fucking hurt and Ken's going to kick my ass for screwing up again and it's not my goddamned fault it’s never my goddamned fault but I'm always getting fucking blamed for it and I'm going to be a Condor pancake in a minute I wonder if they'll be able to scrape me up... _

_ Fingers sink into my upper arms and there's a queer sensation of vertigo. A heartbeat of dizzying nausea and then there's ground under my heels and damn it, I'm not a pancake after all. _

_ My eyes fly open. _

_ "Ken?" _

_ I can't see anything but shadows, but it's him, I know it's him. He's smiling. The smile where you can barely see it in the corner of his mouth but you know it’s there because his eyes are the most perfect, dancing blue. Warm hands flex on my shoulders. _

_ Blink my eyes but there's nothing to see, just the warm pressure of his fingers to anchor us in this place. Hot breath slides across my cheek as he leans closer. Too close. Much, much too close. _

_ "No!" _

_ It's Katse, oh God, it's Katse next to me not Ken and I'm so fucking screwed. Lash out but he's too far inside the circle of my arms to connect, talons suddenly biting cruel into my skin, shaking me. There's something heavy dragging on my arm now, a chain around my wrist. Fear and fury turns everything red. _

_ I'm going to die, he's going to push me over the edge again and I'm going to die without ever seeing his face. _

_ No, no, no, no I am not going down without a fight, nobody takes me out without a fight, nobody takes me down. _

_ "Joe... Joe!" _

_ My arm is still trapped. Something's holding me back, has sunk teeth into the bones of my wrist and I can't. Fucking. Reach. There's stinging warmth against my body, Katse pressing against me like a lover. Skin to skin, disorienting as hell. _

_ "Joe!" _

_ With inhuman effort I free my arm, a sharp bite of pain at my wrist as I tear myself free. Then his throat is between my fingers and fierce victory explodes. _

_ "Fucking asshole, I've got you now!" _

_ He falls back in desperation but I'm too fast, I've got him and I'm not letting go. His hand comes up and digs into muscle and sinew, digging nearly to bone but I don't care how much it hurts. He's mine, he's mine. _

_ The wall, the floor, something behind him fractures and he's cursing even as we roll, wrapping the thickness of the air around us in binding ropes. _

_ Panting breath breaks over my face, there's a forearm strangling tight against my throat. Katse's lost his cape, I can feel skin against my chest. It feels so fucking weird. _

_ Messed up. This is so fucking messed up. Strain in the unclear shadows but all I can make out is dark hair and pale skin, the gleam of teeth as he snarls up at me. We're all tangled up with each other and I can't seem to find the edges of anything. _

_ He squirms, a sliding shifting movement of escape and I lose my grip. His body surges underneath me, bucking me off. _

_ "Get. Back. Here! This time there's nothing to hold me back. Sink my fingers into the length of his hair, hauling his neck around. A sibilant hiss between his lips says pain and he strikes my collarbone with the back of his fist, looking to shatter bone. _

_ Too weak, entirely the wrong leverage. Howl with victory and drag his head back, looking to find his face. _

_ Blue eyes. A teasingly familiar scent rises, slick with memory. Salt. Something clean, like skies and air. _

_ Lean in, trying to figure it out and he sucks in a breath. Hard nipples rub against my chest and suddenly the darkness is warm, warmer, my leg thrust between his. He surges again but he's not getting away, the thickness of this blood darkness struggling to cover us. _

_ Run my fingers over his face, looking for the mask. He always has a mask but I can't find the edge of it. My fingers brush over the line of his lips. Run a thumb over the questioning rise of his cheek. _

_ So fucked up. His hair is wrapped in silk strands over my wrist as I stroke my thumbs under his eyes. I could blind him. He knows it too, his fingers dig into my arm but it's a far away feeling. _

_ Katse has a mask. Katse always has a mask. _

_ Shift weight, slide in harder until we're jammed together, he's half under me and trapped somehow and I still can't see his face. Inhale along the curve of his jaw, almost running my lips over his throat. _

_ He arches back and my fingers hold him tighter, sinking into the fall of his hair, holding him still. _

_ Then I know. _

_ Not Katse. Not Katse.  _ Ken.

_ Breathe his name into the shredding darkness, in the hard line of his throat, into the straining skin behind his ear. Skies and ozone, salt and sweet and something indefinable, something that he brings down from the outer winds and wraps around himself like a second, purer skin. _

_ Then my mouth is on his. _

_ His lips part in surprise, shock, I don't know but it feels so goddamned good. Sink into it, into him, into the brush of his skin against mine like a fur pelt. Thrust into the heat of his body, stroke my lazy way into his mouth until I can taste the sparks on his tongue. Rewarded when his breathing stops, caught tight against the exploding heat of his lips. _

_ The darkness presses down like a fathom. Pale skin gleams, a perfect sculpture of himself even in this crazy place. His mouth trembles against mine. Then he exhales, pushing warmth back into my lungs in a crackling rush. _

_ I'm rock hard, sinking into the kiss, into the maddening slide of his body under mine. _

_ In the shadows, something wails in grief. The sound cuts through the air, wraps a wire of sound around my spine, hauls me back from the intoxicating depths of his mouth. _

_ He shifts uncertainly and my arms tighten in automatic denial. His hands push at my shoulders but it's easy to shrug them off, to nuzzle at his chin, his mouth, to rip away another mind numbing kiss. _

_ Lick the corner of his lips as he pants against me. Hunch my shoulders against the insistent, crying summons. _

_ "Joe." _

_ Bury my face in his throat. _

_ "Joe!" A hand winds itself in my tangled hair and pulls me back roughly. "Joe,  _ we have to answer that."

Blink down at him. What the fuck?

We're on the floor, tangled in the sheets. Look around in a daze.

I'm at his place. Memory fails to provide an answer right away. But the sound I heard in my dream is our bracelets going off in deranged concert.

This time when he moves away I let him go, letting the weight of his hair slide through my fingers. Discover that the hard corner wedged against my back is the night stand, smashed to the ground when we fell off the bed. The lampshade is leaning drunkenly against the wall. I have no idea where the lamp is.

The sound suddenly becomes louder, an aggrieved acoustic tremble as Ken digs his bracelet out from under the sheets. Raise my wrist to answer mine and stare stupidly at the pale, empty skin there. What the hell?

Sit up, or at least try to, but the whole damn bed seems to have followed us down to the floor. I'm trying to extricate myself from both Ken and the blankets as he stretches out, ribs flexing in a long line under his skin.

"Here!" The damn thing finally shuts up as he hits the responder. His voice is rough, deep with sleep. Acknowledgement chirps back at him through the wireless air and I'm half listening as the coded vibrations come back in series.

"Priority three," he confirms unnecessarily. He whispers the return confirmation and the damn thing finally stops squawking. "We have to go."

Easier said than done. Do my best not to look at him as we start unpeeling the blankets. I'm about ready to cut my legs off before we get free, but he's either less embarrassed than I am or less willing to sacrifice a body part.

Or maybe he was dreaming too and doesn't remember what we were almost doing before the damn ISO alarm clock went off. Please God, please God, maybe that's it. Just a damn dream in my head.

I'm rubbing a hand over my naked wrist. There's a vague recollection of being trapped and I realize that I must have torn it off somewhere along the way.

Shit, I had no idea I could even do that. It's supposed to stay on no matter what. Somehow I can't imagine trying to explain to Hakase how I found that little tidbit out. Glance over at Ken and find myself staring at his swollen lips. God.

'What time is it?" I say in a hurry.

He looks over automatically but the clock is nowhere to be found. It's probably smashed to smithereens under the stand. Just my luck. I'll have to buy him a new one.

"Not sure." He glances up at the window. "Early though." He looks at the bracelet in his hand for a moment before tossing it decisively to me. He starts piling the sheets in swift, economic motions on the bed.

He finds his bracelet under the pillow, half wedged beneath the bed. It's damn near hopping up and down in its need to be answered. He slides it onto his wrist, triggering it at the same time.

The short coded bursts go back and forth and I use the excuse to stumble the hell out of there.

The hallway looks so weirdly normal, true dawn light trickling down the floorboards like a small child. Have to adjust myself as I walk because I'm still hard, still wanting something more than mundane motion.

Fuck. A morning hard on, just what I need. Raise the back of my hand to my lips like I'm trying to hold in a secret.

I was dreaming, I know that much. I was falling... Jun was there. Something about Katse.

How the hell did I end up kissing Ken?

Something hot snakes itself down my throat, hits my balls in a clenching rush.

My socks are still in the bathroom, still a little damp from forever ago. There's no way I'm looking at myself in the mirror, no fucking way in hell. Sit on the edge of the tub and pull the socks on and find I can't even remember if I brought a jacket or not.

Thankfully I've still got my shirt on even if I seem to have a lost a few buttons somewhere along the way. There's enough of them still there that I can get it to look like a morning fashion statement and I stumble out of the bathroom just in time to bump into Ken.

His hair is all over the place, and there's a tiny bruise on his left cheekbone. He looks like he needs to go right back to bed and get nailed.

Shake my head savagely. What the hell is wrong with me? He doesn't seem to notice anything as he passes by.

"Come on. You're driving."

His stride is deceptively calm as I follow behind him. He's thrown on a tee shirt but skipped the socks, something I wish I'd been awake enough to think of. My toes wiggle damply.

"Me?"

"You're faster."

"It's only priority three, Ken. The world's not ending." Have to stretch to catch up, trying to keep the rasp out of my voice. I have a bad feeling that I didn't get anywhere near enough sleep for this. "What's the damn hurry?"

He's slipping his shoes on without bending over. Amazingly enough my boots ended up more or less at the door. Haul them on in a practiced motion, toe to heel. Leaning over makes my head swim, a feeling I do my best to ignore.

"The last time we got called in for a three? It turned out to be the Apocalypse Cow. Remember?"

The door bangs behind me as I take the steps two at a time. He waves a hand over his head, keying the locks.

"Move it flyboy. Don't want to be late for the party."

 

* * *

 

The jolt of summoned adrenalin doesn't last long. By the time the ISO operations building comes into view through the windscreen, it's all I can do to keep my eyes open.

Ken doesn't seem to be in any better shape, and I belatedly remember that he probably didn't get any more sleep than I did. He's been silent the whole way in though, face turned to the window. I can't tell if he's catching some last minute shut eye or just trying to avoid my eyes.

Shift uncomfortably in my seat. Don't think about it. It's just some damned Freudian thing and it's not damned fault Ken smells good even in my dreams. It could have happened to anybody.

Stifle a yawn and a shiver at the same time. It's not even seven o'clock in the morning but the rest of the city seems intent on getting my way. Spend a productive few minutes making sure everybody else around me understands that I don't fucking care if they're late for work, this is my lane.

The concrete and glass building we're aiming for doesn't inspire anything in the way of confidence, but then again it's not really meant to. It's ugly, no way around it, painted in colors meant to simulate a more expense plascrete construction. It's only claim to fame is that it matches the others around it perfectly, like an urban planner's civic dream gone horrifically right.

It's always given me the impression that the top half is just going to slide off one morning like a badly put together cake.

The scary part is it's a real business. Honest to goodness nine to fivers work here, doing something or other that keeps the lease on the books, gives the place daylight foot traffic, tax bills and every appearance of urban legitimacy. I wouldn't even be surprised if the damn thing made a profit.

I'm not ashamed to admit I've spent more than a few guilty hours figuring out how to strip it down to its component parts. If I don't care about collateral damage I figure I could manage it with three, maybe four burst explosives in key places but I'd need Jun to work out the delay fuses. Somehow I don't think she'd go for it.

I could probably rig it to implode without touching anything around it with more than dust but then I'd have to spend a few weeks crawling through the ducting, planting the charges more precisely. And I'd still need Jun.

I have a depressing feeling that today is not going to be one of my better days. Anything to save me from early morning meetings. Why the hell can't Galactor attack after lunch? I'm going to take up a goddamned petition one day.

The parking lot is nearly empty, no early birds looking to make a brown nosing impression on the boss. That means I can just pull into the first vacant spot near the door, ignoring the discreetly posted Reserved sign. Kill the engine and rub a hand over my face, trying to wake up a little more.

Ken doesn't say anything about the parking job which I am not sure how to take.

Automatic pilot gets us up to the sign on the door which announces that we have reached Ajilon Comm, a Division of Rockwater in tacky gold. A pass of the wrist over the locking mechanism and we're inside and moving through the echoing foyer like we belong here.

The security guard at his station looks about as awake as I feel, not even glancing at us as we go by. I can almost feel Ken's frown on the back of my neck. Sloppy security. Not my problem though.

Hesitate at the elevator banks, trying to remember where we're supposed to go. Ken takes over, confidently pushing the button for the eighteenth floor. The muted ding of the car's arrival seems terribly loud in my ears.

It's easy to let Ken go first. Keep my head down so that the overhead cam can't get a lock on anything but my hair, place a hand against the circumspect camera placed at shoulder height. There's another one angled up on the floor but Ken's almost standing on it which was my intention. The recognition software is probably having a conniption fit.

"Joe." His voice is quiet but sure. He's not bothering to hide, letting the overhead take his picture to compare against the files.

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

"Practicing my invisibility shield. You?"

He sighs.

The eighteenth floor looks like any other floor and the bland carpeting looks especially mundane. Nothing but the best the discount factory can offer for the valued employees of Ajilon. The artwork on the walls has always reminded me of high brow paint by numbers.

There's money in the structure though, in the reinforced walls and steel doors that aren't apparent under the cheap paint jobs. There are more recog cameras here but Ken's right at my shoulder so I'd have to do some fancy dancing to avoid them all. It's not worth it.

The door marked "Janitor Supplies" next to the elevator actually opens into a closet. Behind the closet though is a high tech security station, running the cameras and other latent defenses in the building. One of the burst explosives in my head is tagged for that room, since the main structural beam runs right underneath it. Hopefully the security people in there are more awake than the guy downstairs.

Ken must have been really been paying attention to the code messages because he swings into the correct conference room without hesitating. Not surprisingly, everyone else got here before we did. One of these days I'm going to move the trailer into the parking lot so I can be first in and then I'm going to glue the door shut.

Ryu's sleeping, large hands linked over his stomach. Jinpei and Jun are on the other side of the large conference table. The squirt looks bored already. Jun has that wide eyed look that means she's trying to hold in either her temper or laughter.

"Aniki!" Jinpei perks up when he sees Ken and Jun looks over, smiling impartially at the both of us.

"Good morning, Ken. Joe." Her eyes startle wider for a moment and she blinks. "What happened to you two?"

I'm sprawling into a chair next to the dozing Ryu since it's the farthest away from the windows and I have no idea what she's talking about. Ken's taking his usual seat near the head of the table, a couple of seats up from Jinpei. The sunlight behind him haloes his hair.

"Happened?" Even Ken looks a little lost.

She waves a hand at the both of us. "You look like you got dressed by the same psychotic hairdresser. Don't either of you own a comb?"

Ken looks nonplussed. "What's wrong with my hair? It's there, isn't it?"

He's got a point. Personally, I think he looks damn good with his hair all over the place. Not that I have an opinion or anything. Shit.

Scowl at Jun because that's always safe territory and cross my arms over my chest. "Combs are for sissies."

Jinpei crows with laughter. "Onee-chan! I'm not combing my hair if Aniki-Joe doesn't have to."

"You are not excused, Jinpei. Proper grooming is important." She shoots a warning look at me. Ken still looks out of the loop.

"What she says, kid." My voice sounds like grudging gravel.

She looks back and forth between us again, a slight frown marring the delicate arch of her eyebrows. "Sleep well?" she finally asks me. I think she's constitutionally incapable of picking on Ken.

Since I'm in the middle of stifling another yawn, I think I'm busted. Manage to turn it into a noncommittal shrug.

She makes a small sound in the back of her throat. "Up all night again, huh."

What can I say? Close enough. "Yeah. Gonna turn me in to the sleep police?" Make like Ryu and stretch my legs out, linking my fingers across my stomach. We'd probably look like the Bobbsey twins except that I know that Ryu snores louder than I do. I am deliberately not going to run a hand through my hair like Ken is. I don't care what I look like.

I can tell when she gives up on me. She whispers something to Jinpei and he immediately looks mutinous.

"But Joe's slouching!" She gives him a look and he sighs heavily, starting to wriggle into a more vertical orientation.

"Don't even go there, squirt," I mutter out of the side of my mouth. "She's not my onee-chan. Thank God."

"Joe." It's just my name but something in the tone of her voice makes it perfectly clear that she's already ready to wash her hands of me. "Jinpei needs to learn proper manners because he's obviously not going to get them from either of you two."

"Hey, I can teach the kid things."

She mutters something under her breath and I can pretend I don't actually hear. In an obvious effort to switch the conversation she looks over at Ken.

"Why do you think Hakase's called us in?"

Snort at in her direction. Is there more than one reason? There's no answer from the Great White Shadow. In fact, Ken is looking like he's sleeping with his eyes wide open.

"Ken?"

There's still no answer. Jinpei sniggers and leans over to wave a hand in front of Ken's face, making him blink.

"Hmmm?"

"What do you think?"

"About what?

Jun rolls her eyes. "About why we're here, cloud boy. Weren't you listening?" She looks over at me suddenly and something clicks in her eyes. "Don't tell me. You were both up all night."

Ken immediately looks defensive. "Hey. I slept."

"When?"

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know I'm an idiot. Jun's looking at me with something close to suspicion, like it's all my fault that Ken didn't get any shut eye. which isn't precisely true. I'm pretty damned confident that we both got at least an hour's sleep. Maybe even two.

That brings the tally of quality sandman time for me up to eight hours in three days. I have no idea about Ken.

"On the ride in," he finally admits. The small bruise on his cheek is an accusing smudge of darkness.

"Thank you all for coming so quickly."

My fucking God. For once, I'm saved. Hakase enters the room in cloud of quiet authority and I take a moment to send up a heartfelt prayer to whichever angel drew the short straw and got assigned to my case today.

"I'll come to the point, team. Less than four hours ago, there was a proximity alarm in the southwestern region of Ketnan district on the coast. Agents were dispatched and their initial reports gave us the authority to call a priority four. Just over an hour ago, that intel was analyzed and upgraded our status to priority three on standby. It was recommended by staff that the Kagaku Ninjatai be assembled in preparation for a likely assault, a recommendation I thought wise to take. As of three minutes ago we are at priority two and the God-Phoenix is being prepped to fly. You will be briefed here by eye witnesses before being sent out to survey the area for yourselves."

"What's the situation?" Ken's question of course. We've all straightened up as soon as Hakase came into the room, even Ryu, which proves he wasn't all that asleep after all. Probably a defense mechanism from Jun's morning bossiness.

"Ketnan district is known for its seismic activity which is probably how Galactor was able to disguise its operations for so long. However, suspiciously regular fault quakes came to the attention of the local seismologists, one of which is an ISO agent. Red Impulse was dispatched last night to investigate. After having reviewed their camera data it is our belief that Galactor has managed to build another mecha, and this time we'd like to get to it before it launches."

"What are the strategic targets in Ketnan?"

Hakase pushes the glasses farther up on his nose and calls a screen behind him into life. The windows polarize at the touch of a button, turning the room into a deeper shade of twilight. A heads down display of the Ketnan lights up, with four glowing red objects and a single gold streak.

"This," he says, indicated the blurry yellow section, "is the area that Red Impulse has defined as the most likely place that Galactor has located their base." He highlights several sections one after the other and Ken at least is paying close attention. So's Ryu, but that's probably because he's going to have to fly us over it.

"There are several hollow caverns large enough to conceal a mecha of reasonable dimensions, but the ground echoes are deceptive. As of this moment we are unable to narrow the search corridor any further but we'll dispatch any information as it becomes available."

"The red areas are what the strategic committee believes are the most likely targets." He highlights each of them in turn. "The Ketnan Observatory, the radar monitoring stations deployed along the coastline, the Minmetals Corporation plant and the Neuroprotective Laboratory based out of the Mercy Angel Hospital."

He looks at us and his glasses catch a red flash from the screen behind him. "While these are important local installations, they seem minor grade for known Galactor interests so their development of a base in this area seems out of place. If the base truly does exist, we will have to reevaluate their overall tactical plan. It is possible their offensive may have undergone a radical shift in policy."

Just what we need. Galactor going even more unpredictable.

"Team, your mission is to confirm Red Impulse's data with the God-Phoenix's instrumentation, and determine whether a base or mecha exists and report back."

"Great. A game of hide and seek with a side of touch-me-not. Wake me up when we get there."

Hakase doesn't even look at me, instead directing his attention to Ken. "It goes without saying that if we are able to capture a base with a mecha in near complete construction, its value is inestimable. Try and stay unobserved. We have ground teams assembling to follow you in once you have located the base."

"Roger!"

If Ken's fighting sleep, he's sure as hell not showing it. Its times like these that he reminds me of a pointing dog, all ears and saliva.

"We have flown in two of the seismologists who took the initial readings and an amateur caver who may have stumbled onto something suspicious near the area in question. I've brought them all in for you to hear their reports first hand."

His gaze washes over all of us as he puts the light pointer down and the screen behind him fades back into obscurity. The windows depolarize and the morning sun streams in again, blinding me for a moment before my eyes adjust.

Then he's gone and we've got a few moments to talk before his witnesses come in.

"Shit, not another one of these 'hands off' missions! I hate these."

"Objection noted, Joe. Jun. Any first thoughts on a search pattern?"

"Not at the moment, Ken. Jinpei?"

He's got both elbows on the table, his chin in the palms of his hands. He looks like any kid would, in a middle of a grown up conversation.

"The north east caverns are the deepest and there's a magma vein nearby. Geothermal energy's cheap. And Galactor sure like to dig."

"Okay. We'll check the data in-flight but if nothing comes up, we'll go with Jinpei's suggestion. Let's go, team."

Then we're all standing and transform fields start to flare. Ryu is the first then Jinpei and Jun almost simultaneously. Look across at Ken but I can't focus my eyes through the wave distortion.

Raise my arm, eerily reminded of my dream. Darkness and falling and nothing working. Shake it off with effort but my voice is somewhat less than steady as I murmur the words.

"Bird go."

It's never easy. A hundred times, a thousand times later and it's still like riding a storm, still a scream of pain so sweet it’s like being sliced open and rebuilt. You think you remember what it's like until you call for it again and then it's like nothing you've ever felt before.

This time, though, this time it’s vertigo times a factor of magnitude. The field washes over me, through me, again and again and there's nothing building but waves of nausea and fire.  _ It's not working. _

It howls through my blood, scorching me with agony. I'm trying. God, I'm trying but I can't. Pull it. Together.

Miles away, I can feel my teeth grinding together with the effort not to cry out. Something's fucked up. The waves build higher and higher and nothing is aligning itself like it's supposed to.

In a minute there's going to be warm bodies walking through the door.

I can't possibly stop. But I can't even breathe. I can't do anything but keep myself from fragmenting at the seams.

Then the symbiosis locked deep into body and bones recalibrates, arrowing towards a new completion. I can feel it starting to fall back into place as the constellation that's my life shifts and the pattern draws itself across my blood. Sinew and muscle start to knit themselves back together, faster and faster.

Then the tsunami crests and I'm falling back into the center in a hard rush, the convulsions of pain sliding away into the glass air as wings finally settle over my shoulders. Just in time because the door starts to open.

I'm looking at the blurry form of Hakase and his prize fish, trying not to dry heave as the last of the vertigo cascades away. There's muffled sound around me but I'm having too much trouble actually standing to wonder what the problem is. Grit my teeth and try to uphold the tradition of not fainting in front of company.

"Gentleman, may I introduce you to the Kagaku Ninjatai." Hakase's voice sounds a million miles away.

My vision clears just a little, enough that I can tell the civilians are nodding their heads, probably nervous at meeting us in the flesh. They look weird, the wrong color or something. Blink my eyes but it's still not quite right. The telemetry in the visor looks strange too and a fresh wave of dizziness hits me.

Nobody says anything. Take a couple of deep breaths and close my eyes, trying to concentrate on figuring out where my stomach ended up. I think it's still in the same place but I'm not willing to bet the farm on it. Besides, it's Ken's job to ask all the questions.

Occurs to me after a few more moments that nobody's saying anything. Open my eyes and find Hakase just staring at us with the oddest look on his face. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was stunned speechless. He hasn't walked all the way into the room and the civvies are grouped behind him in an uncertain cluster, peering over his shoulder.

Look in the other direction, because Ken's taking his sweet ass time getting this interview started.

Ken's not there, though. Dark wings meet my surreal vision, an indigo visor. A uniform burnt and molded to the wrong body.

So that's what I look like, I think absently. Not bad. Look down, the flash of sick anticipation gelling into instant certainty. Shit.

Blood on white on white, azure gloves. Look up again and the world fractures itself into blue shards that reflect at the wrong angle. No wonder everything looks so damn weird. I've got Ken's fucking uniform on.

Hakase recovers first. He continues into the room like there's nothing wrong but he's moving like he's trying not to break eggshells. Under any other circumstance it'd be damn funny. The warm bodies behind him crowd in like chicks to a mother hen. This must really rock their world - truth is, we don't usually get to meet expert witnesses when they're on this side of the living.

"Ah .. Gatchaman." Hakase looks like he's not sure which one of us to look at. For that matter, I'm not sure either. "I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Mikeal Turono and his assistant Pem Bertist, the leading seismologists of Ketnan district." The two people in question bob their heads enthusiastically and I think I manage to garble out something that sounds not too threatening. "Also, Seymour Rhodesi. He was spelunking in the northern cave system and is familiar with the local geological formations."

Our mole's a little short for a guy, but I guess that'd be an advantage in his hobby. In her heels, even Jun's taller than he is, but he's still got Jinpei beat by a few finger widths.

"I'm honored to meet you sir, meet all of you, my mother is never going to believe this..." He keeps talking but I've already lost track of him, because I've got way more important problems than figuring out why he finds his voice so fascinating.

Ken's jaw is clenched under his.. shit, under my visor and if he feels anything like I feel then he's probably struggling not to lose his breakfast too.

This isn't even remotely possible. The transform is supposed to be linked to us so intimately it would be like he's suddenly stolen my fingerprints or I've stolen his. Or something. Shit, how the hell did this happen? Some research department somewhere is going to be pulling serious overtime on this one.

Ken looking at the quiescent bracelet in his hand. Tossing it across the few feet of space between us.

Shit. Shit, Ken. You gave me the wrong damn piece of jewelry. You're lucky you didn't tear us both apart with the fucked up resonance. The thin line of his lips makes me pretty sure he's thinking exactly the same thing.

Hakase's talking now, but I don't even bother to keep track of him. Ken's finally answering though, his voice sounding strained from behind my mask. Cross my arms and the Birdstyle slides uneasily across my shoulders. Even the boots feel wrong,

Jun's just staring at Ken. Jinpei's doing his best not to rubberneck but it's sort of a lost cause. Ryu's actually shifted closer to me, like he's not sure if I need protecting or something. Scowl under the visor and swallow a few more times. The shift causes information to scroll across the inside of the visor in a blurring rush and it's hard to control the input because the triggers are not in the right place for me. It's not helping with the lingering queasiness.

If the invited guests think it's bizarre to be questioned by the Condor, they're controlling the urge to ask. Out of the corner of my eye, Hakase looks like he's about to have a fit of apoplexy and I can't really blame him. I've got some pretty pointed questions myself although they'll probably be best framed as angry accusations.

Ken is warming to his subject, always good at focusing on what's important and ignoring the rest of the weird shit going down. He calls up the display and has the amateur cave crawler point out something or other. The seismologists are agreeing happily with whatever the conversation is, the assistant in particular looking like she's having the time of her life.

There's a discreet knock at the door and Hakase fades to the background. A face and arm appear and there's a short but tense conversation. Damn the stupid visor because I can't find the switch that would enhance the audio range.

A sudden thought drops one hand to my belt, searching.

Shit. I've even got Ken's birdrang. What the hell am I going to do with that? Clobber Galactor on the head with it? I'm sure as hell not throwing it anywhere. I'll brain myself.

"Team. We are now priority one. The God-Phoenix is ready to fly." Hakase's voice moves through the air with quiet precision. He ushers out the civilians, even though the assistant seems to be extremely reluctant to tear herself away from Ken. She even dares to reach out and run a hand down his arm before he can shift away.

Maybe she's got a thing for the Condor. That makes me feel better suddenly. I smirk at Ken behind my visor.

"The God-Phoenix is launching in six minutes." Hakase looks like he's swallowed something extremely pointy and isn't sure if it's going to go down. "Bird Scramble, team." The curiosity must be eating him alive.

I'm unsteady on my feet, something to do with the height of the damn heels in this version of the Birdstyle, the collar feels like it's half strangling me and I can't see a damn thing out of my peripheral vision but I still manage a snappy salute as I go by.

If Ken manages something equally suave, I can't tell because turning around to look will probably dump me on my ass.

 

* * *

 

The advantages become apparent as soon as we reach the 'Phoenix.

Ken's automatically heads for his chair but I'm already in it, swishing those lovely white wings around me as I swivel.

"Joe, what the hell do you think you're doing?" He sounds like his old self even if he sure doesn't look like it.

"What's it look like? I'm in command today." The chair does a complete revolution. I think I've gotten a handle on this Birdstyle, or its got a handle on me. It doesn't feel anywhere near as tight anymore.

Whatever answer he was expecting, that wasn't it. It's not often I can get a gaping fish face out of Ken and I enjoy the priceless moment for all its worth.

"What drugs are you on, Condor?"

I look him up and down pointedly. "Who you calling Condor, Condor?"

"Joe, you ass, you don't seriously think..."

"Is that any way to talk to your Commander? I'm going to put you on report for insubordination. Jun, take a memo."

He flounders again, well and truly messed up. Finally he turns to Jun and waves his arms. "Tell him."

"Tell him what?" That is a remarkably cool voice. Frosty even. Ken, as usual, doesn't seem to clue in.

"Tell him to get out of my chair!"

She looks over at me, looks at Ken, looks back at me. "Gatchaman is the White Shadow. He's wearing white wings. Therefore, that's his chair." She looks back at Ken. "Unless you care to wrestle him for it? I could get into a strip show."

I can hear his teeth grinding from here. "This is mutiny."

"If the boot fits.." Okay, its not fair to be enjoying this so much.

Ryu, smart man, is keeping his head down and finishing the prewarm checks on the board. "Seats, everyone. We're launching in two."

Even Ken knows better than to stand around on deck during a boost. He takes my seat and no doubt remains glaring at the back of my head.

"Whenever you're ready, Horned Owl." Wave one hand magnanimously.

"Don't enjoy it too much, Joe," he warns me under his breath. "Or Ken's gonna take you apart at your lily white seams."

"I laugh in the face of danger."

"Your funeral."

And on that cheery note, we launch.

 

* * *

 

"What do you think?"

We're clustered around Jinpei's screens, trying to figure out what we're looking at. Or at least I am. For all I know everyone else has already finished playing connect-the-Galactor-dots with the data and they're just waiting for me to catch up.

"Well, there's lots of alloys showing up in the deep scan and a couple of passageways lead right from the surface into the deeper caverns." Jinpei must be taking pity on me if he's explaining it. "There's the active magma branch. They're really keen on geothermal energy so It could indicate a Galactor base." Jinpei twiddles a few settings and the display leaps fast enough to give me another quick surge of motion sickness. He focuses on something but it all looks the same to me.

"Or it's an airplane graveyard." Scowl at the sweeping needle as if it's going to spill more secrets just because I'm looking at it with my eyes crossed. "Are we going in?"

"Well, that's up to you... Commander."

Ken's still sitting in my seat but now he's got his legs up on the console, crossed at his slim ankles. In my dark wings he looks so different, it’s like I'm looking at a mirror inversion of him. I wonder if he feels the same looking at me or if he's still thinking of a way to get his hands around my throat and tear the Birdstyle off.

Petty revenge is a dish best served no colder than lukewarm, at least around here.

Jun's not speaking to either of us if she can help it. Jinpei thinks it’s all some sort of joke and Ryu's been busy keeping his head down. Jun, however, has been glaring daggers at me the whole time, like it's my fault or something. Who would have guessed that this color would make me feel like I'm wearing a target painted on my back?

"What do you mean, it's up to me?" Jun snorts at me, an unladylike noise and Ken doesn't even bother hiding the grin. "Right. Up to me. Hell." Stare the screens one more time but they still make about as much sense as one of Hakase's genius class crosswords. "Screw it, we're going in. I'll make it up as we go."

"Good plan. Are we taking the 'Phoenix too? Parking it? If so, where? What about Hakase's instruction not to be observed if possible? The ground troops he's assembling, are they ready to follow? Do we have time to wait for them? Do you want to send somebody to recon first? Split into teams? Should we ask for Red Impulse to run air interference at the same time? If the mecha exists, what are your contingency plans for making sure it doesn't launch?"

I'm gaping as he ticks things off on his fingers. "How the hell do you come up with all this?"

"Practice." He inspects his boots critically and then crosses his legs the other way. "Need a flowchart?"

That snaps my spine to the upright position. "No, damn it." I’d pinch the bridge of my nose if I could. "The 'Phoenix can continue air surveillance at the maximum height possible, maintaining as low a radar ghost as possible. Ryu, keep on the hot switch to base so we can get those grounders in as soon as I give the word. Jinpei, keep on the data in case anything else turns up. Jun, you're coming with me."

Ken drops his feet to the floor with a sudden thump, the smirk wiped off his face. "Where are you going?"

"Going spelunking for mecha."

"I'm going with you."

"Nope." This, I'm thinking, has got to be the best part. "You can stay here. If we find it, and if it's launch ready, and if we can't stop the launch, then you get to be in charge of blasting it out of the sky."

"Joe." Oh, that was a serious growl.

"Be a good Condor while I'm gone. Ryu, find us a good vector to one of those entrances. C'mon, Jun."

She follows, which I have to admit I wasn't actually sure she was going to and my last glimpse of Ken is him staring after us with a thunderous scowl on his face. Then the doors slide closed and we're rising to the launch bubble.

"You're enjoying this."

The world is whipping by outside the transparent glass and I have to look down at the Birdstyle instead. The inertial field keeps us comfortable as Ryu angles for the ground.

"Wouldn't you?"

She's quiet for a moment. "Maybe."

"There you go."

The bracelet chimes softly as Jinpei feeds coordinate data into it. The heads up display on the visor triggers and an overlay appears, showing the likely Galactor entrance.

"C'mon Junie. Show time."

Her hand is solid in mine, warm fingers linked as the bubble retracts and the wind hits us for real. Ryu's skimming the ground and it's an easy jump.

It's an easy jump, damn it. But it's only the fact that Jun is waiting for me that makes me take the leap.

Hit the ground awkwardly and have to tumble out, breaking the link with her. My excuse is that I'm still not used to these damn boots.

"You all right?" She's crouched down, already scanning for activity.

"How the hell does Ken manage in this damn thing?" Inspect the wings for damage, although of course there isn't any.

"You know Joe, you're not half bad looking in that. Considered putting in for a promotion?"

"Funny. You gonna off Ken, or do I?"

"Now who's being funny? Come on, this way." She moves off, leaving me to follow. I'd protest her taking the lead but I'm still trying to figure out how Ken's visor works. That's my excuse, anyways.

Not more than ten minutes inside the rough hole in the ground, the passageway smooths out into plascrete and steel. Yeah, it's a Galactor base, like we hadn't figured it out already.

Echo confirmation back to the 'Phoenix and keep moving. A base this big usually means some sort of mecha - we only have to find it.

Even though I think I have to stand out like a lighthouse in the dark, we only end up having to put down four guards. Two of them because they were too close to a door we had to go through and two more because they picked the wrong access corridor to have a necking session in.

It's a bit of an eye opener to discover that Galactor have love lives. I was doing okay until the one stripped off his shirt and then I just couldn't watch anymore. Tell myself that it's got nothing to do with the fact that they're both guys or that the guy getting naked fastest looks just a little bit like Ken.

Jun's eyes are rather wide but she doesn't say anything either so I guess we're both in denial.

Finding the mecha isn't terribly difficult. The closer we get, the larger the corridors become until we're ghosting through yawning warehouses. Whoever the base captain is, he's given us lovely grid catwalks near the ceilings to use so the beehive of activity increasing below us is really more for aesthetic value than an obstacle course.

The mecha itself, when we find it, is actually rather classy. Built along the lines of some sort of cross between a mongoose and a butterfly, it's got wings that don't look particularly functional but that probably house jet propulsion rockets. It's about six hundred feet long which is pretty small for what Katse likes to go for most of the time. This one is built to stomp towns, not cities.

That's the good part. The bad part is its parked dead center in the middle of the floor, on a lighter colored circle of concrete. There's a couple of truck loaders nearby to use, a few carts large enough to cover at least one of us. It's not going to be a cakewalk getting there without being seen.

"What do you think?"

"You're saying that a lot lately, Joe." She tucked in next to me, taking up as little space as possible.

"Hey. I never get to make decisions, just buck them. I could use a little help here with the menu choices."

"Serve you right if I told you to ask Ken for directions."

"C’mon, Jun."

She sighs and gives me a long look. "Okay, okay. You know that Ken's probably chewing the seats to shreds back on the 'Phoenix, worrying about you getting us into trouble."

"Me? It's his own damn fault for giving me the wrong damn bracelet."

She pounces on that like a cat on cream. "Really. Tell me all about that, Joe. How did you manage to get switched around?"

"We were .. wrestling. Or something. The damn things came off! C'mon Jun, they all look the same."

"That's it? That's your big explanation?"

"It's the truth! Why isn't anyone believing me today?" For some reason, I can taste Ken on my mouth again, the warm darkness of his mouth and the feeling of falling washes over me. Ignore the twinge of reaction deep in my gut.

"Hakase is going to want to know more than that." Shit. Shit. She is so right. "If I were you, I'd start thinking about it." She relents then, touching my arm then to direct my seething attention to the nose of the mecha. "Let's start there. Chances are the command bridge is in the front, near the 'eyes'. If we have time, we can try to disable the wings. Then we can call the troops in to secure the base."

Hallelujah, it sounds like a plan to me. "Roger."

It goes really, really well for about four minutes. Down off the catwalk in easy jumps to the ground, moving from cover to cover. Nice and smooth, nobody notices anything unusual about a couple of extra shadows on the floor.

In fact, we make it most of the way across the hangar floor. End up crouching behind a conveniently placed loader about sixty feet and a couple of seconds away from leaping into a nice, open access hatch.

Then all hell breaks loose.

First clue is when all the lights suddenly flare to painful brightness. I don't just mean they upped the wattage, I mean the whole damn place lights up like it’s on fire. I'm blind for a couple of heart stopping seconds before the visor compensates and my eyes do their voodoo shifting. The second clue is when somebody starts laughing over the intercom.

Shit.

"Gatchaman!"

I almost start looking around before I realize he's talking to me. Look over at Jun and she nods her head. Busted.

"Gatchaman! At last, you come! How do you like our little show?"

What is he on about? Must be something in the Galactor mindset that gets all excited about speeches because he's not even waiting for an answer. A flick of my finger and Jun's gone, moving for a different position.

"An extra special stage just for you! You should be flattered. A play for an audience of one! A penultimate performance!"

If anything, the lights get even brighter. The shadow I'm casting on the ground is insanely sharp, knife edged in its clarity. Look up, but even through the visor I can't actually tell where the lights are located. Drop a hand to my waist, thinking I'll try a couple of wild shots anyways, but all I find is Ken's birdrang.

Shit twice. I should have made him give me my gun back.

"What? Nothing to say, Gatchaman? I'm disappointed!"

I've lost track of Jun which I guess is a good thing. Since it seems rather pointless to be hiding when we've obviously been set up, I move into the spotlight. At the very least, it's got to be difficult to see white on white in this glare. The visor is trying so hard to compensate that it's nearly black.

"I'm here, Galactor. Is this the part where you explain your plan while I yawn?" The birdrang is beyond me, but shuriken, those I got. Tuck a few into my fingers under the cover of the wings.

There's a heartbeat of silence. Then; "You are trapped here, Gatchaman! We fed information into your pathetically simple network of spies and built this place just for you. It is a work of art as you will soon discover!" The rolling laughter is way too high pitched for my taste, like our unknown base captain is wearing his jock strap a little too tight.

Look up and squint against the lights. Straight up is out of the question, the ceiling is just too damned high and we're too far away from the walls to gain anything that way. I can't see beyond the circle of glare but it's pretty obvious we've been ringed with goons.

The laughter is fucking annoying. That at least I can target and shuriken fly in that direction even as I leap for the air.

It's instant chaos. Bullets fill the air like some sort of steel storm and I can't see anything but blinding light. Every time I try and go for a wall, I'm forced back by crossfire. We're so screwed.

Then out of the corner of my eye, a brighter white streaks by and I arrow down to follow it to the floor.

It's Jun. Without words she springs for my shoulders and I lock my fingers around her ankles. Concrete shatters around us even as we start to turn.

The whirlwind helps but with just the two of us, it's not enough. It buys us time though, the crossfire scattered into individual threads of destruction instead of a hailstorm. We spring in different directions from the top of the cyclone, but still can't seem to get out of the light. There's just nothing to aim for.

"The mecha!"

It's our only hope, large enough to shelter us both until we can figure a way out. She doesn't bother answering me, just races for the larger bulk of the machinery. I swarm in just behind her and then we're crouched in stygian darkness after the sunburn brilliance outside. I think the visor's going to have a meltdown in a minute.

"Fuck."

Much, much too slowly, my sight goes the other way. Her wings are the first thing that I can make out in the darkness. I can't hear gunfire anymore so at least that part of the plan worked. Why waste bullets on something you can't hit? Not that that's ever stopped them before.

"Jun, can you reach the 'Phoenix?" At this point I'm not too proud to call for help.

"No. They've jammed us. I'll keep trying."

As details start to pick themselves out of the spaces around us, I understand we've really been had. The mecha, isn't. It's a shell of a thing, just walls and struts to hold it all together. Looks damned good on the outside but it's very obviously a decoy now.

I can hear the laughter starting again. Work my way forward to the front of the tin foil structure and risk a look out.

Strangely, the lights have gone down to normal levels. I can even make out the walkways with their complements of Galactor goons, equipped with standard issue machine guns. There's even a darker blot against one side that has to be the Galactor captain. I guess the shuriken didn't make it.

We're too far away to make out any details of his costume, but if he looks anything like this thing we're using as cover it's probably for the best.

"Gatchaman! I am so pleased to see you are enjoying our little show! A pity you will be unable to appreciate the final act!"

Now what the hell is he talking about? Jun comes up behind me, a slim warmth at my shoulder.

"Goodbye, Gatchaman!"

I have no clue what the fuck he's on about. Is this thing rigged to explode?

Fuck.

"Jun, get out!"

We're too slow. Fuck, much too slow and no, it's not us that's rigged to explode.

There's only a single fraction of an instant for the adrenalin to hit. I have a great view through the eye slits of this thing to see the charges at the edge of the concrete pad this thing is parked on go up in a cascading series of fireworks.

Then the whole damn floor gives way underneath us.

Back out through the access hatch is impossible. We're falling tail first into the hole underneath this trap and the first strut I grab breaks, not meant to hold any weight and then we're both sliding backwards at an insane angle.

Desperation is the mother of my fucking necessity. One foot hits a wall and I lunge upwards, back towards the only light I can see which are the eyes. Ken's birdrang is in my other hand and its weight helps me put my fist through the clear pane to dig its wicked point into the metal outside.

This thing might be built of soup cans and twine, but the outer skin is more than pot metal and it holds, my fucking God, it holds.

Jun's faster than I am. There's a wire of heat around one leg and twisting down I realize her yo-yo's wrapped itself around my ankle. She's hanging on for life, dangling dangerously near the other end of the counterfeit mecha.

"Get up here!"

Brace a foot against another piece of structure, hoping to hell this one holds. Hand over hand she hauls herself up, because if she retracts the cable she'll probably slice my foot off.

I look up. The mecha is shattering around us, screaming as pieces shear off against the sides of the trap. Smooth dark sides, and narrowing quickly. I've seen spider traps that look like this. I don't want to meet whatever's at the bottom.

Then her hands are on my leg, my waist, my shoulders. The yo-yo cable slithers back and I don't even have time to worry about whether my leg's taken any damage from the unorthodox usage of weapon-grade microfilament. When she climbs high enough I put my free hand under her boot and shove her up.

She disappears in a flicker of pink and white and then her face comes back, framed in fear. Grab her hand and let her haul me up onto the dubious safety of the nose cone.

At least two luxurious seconds to appreciate the literal hole we've gotten ourselves into. The sides are too smooth, machined in some way and damned if I know if we can find purchase on them if we jump.

Look back down the mecha and realize that we don't have a choice.

The tail end of the decoy is already falling into the abyss.

Grab her around the waist and jump for it.

We hit the wall and start to slide, not even a single toe hold for us to latch onto. One more time the birdrang saves our asses, its killing point slamming into the wall as I drive my whole arm into the thrust.

Whatever this thing is built of cracks instantly under the pressure, splitting under the birdrang. We slide a full heart jolting body length before coming to a sudden, numbing stop. My shoulder shrieks, nearly wrenched out of its socket but I've got a death grip on her waist, on the birdrang.

We're suspended by that single point of contact as the mecha finishes its destructive fall, crumbling away into the darkness.

Heat blasts up now that the shielding metal is gone. I start to cough, gases swirling around us that choke the oxygen from the air. Furnace heat.

"Don't tell me. The magma vein."

She's coughing too. Close my eyes and concentrate. Ken's visor is angled differently than mine but most of the major controls are in similar spots. Open my eyes and manage to trigger the vent system through the helmet, cycle in the air exchanger.

Cleaner air immediately starts to drift around my face and I suck it in gratefully. It won't keep us alive forever, but it'll delay asphyxiation long enough for us to say goodbye properly. Jun's done the same thing because her coughing eases.

Look down, ignoring the strain on my arm as best I can.

It's darker than Hades down there with brief flares of coal red breaking up and reforming. Look up and the light seems like heaven, hundreds of feet away. Too far away to make it with a jump, even assuming I could find something to push off of. We're screwed. Again.

"Jun, can you get us any higher?"

She doesn't answer, but a moment later the yo-yo sings out above us, looking for anchor. Then again. And then again. Nothing.

"Joe, I'm sorry." She starts to cough again, her body shaking against mine.

"It's okay, Junie. We'll figure something out. Or Ken will get off his lazy ass and rescue us like he's supposed to."

Look at the wall to try and figure out what the thing is made of. Something like glass metal is about all I can come up with, and as far as I can tell, a single sheet of it. I don't see seams, rivets, anything that holds it together. Nothing I can peel apart and exploit for a foothold. For all I know, they poured this thing in a single wash of red hot lava.

My brain puts it together. Dark glass like metal. Fuck. Obsidian. No wonder the birdrang sheared through it like it was butter. Jun's yo-yo has no chance of digging itself into this.

Don't even realize I'm cursing until Jun's laughter wraps itself around my ears.

"What?"

"No wonder Jinpei worships the ground you walk on."

Look at her, into her eyes so close to mine. There's enough light to see the scared humor in them.

"Yeah, well. I like to be a well rounded bad ass."

"Joe." Her breath hitches for a moment as a lethal blast of gas swells up beneath our heels. "Joe, in case we don't make it..."

"Fuck that, Jun. We'll make it."

"Hush. In case we don't. I just want you to know..."

"That you're desperately in love with me. I know. Don't worry about it."

"Joe!"

Pull her closer to me, so that our visors can share the clean air they're struggling to generate. Try and keep my breathing shallow, trying to give more to her.

"Shut up, Jun. I'm desperately in love with you too."

She's trying to keep her breathing even as well, making her voice lower than usual. "You're a pain in the ass, Joe Asakura."

"You're not the first to say it. Let's try and make sure you're not the last."

Minutes go by. My arm goes from shrieking pain to a more desperate numbness. I've got my eyes closed, everything I've got in trying to hold on. I'd give my left leg for the cable gun. It's got enough punch power to sink itself into this obsidian hell, reel us up into light and life.

Hold on, hold on, don't let go or Junie will fall... it's a mantra in my mind, in my body. Fuck, Ken, where are you?

It's gotta be some sort of fucked up karmic payback thing. Three days ago I was hanging on for my life to the outside of a frozen piece of ice, so far up in the stratosphere that I could see forever. Now I'm suspended six inches above hell and this time it's not just me that's going to fall.

"Junie. Jun, I can't hold on much longer."

"Joe." Her voice is far away even though I know she's whispering right in my ear.

"I want you to take a charge and try and blow yourself a hole in the wall higher up. I think I can swing you that far but it's got to be soon."

"I'm not leaving you!"

I can feel my fingers finally starting to slide off, the build up of unreleased acid in the muscle catching up to me. Find the strength somewhere to firm up my grip. It's not going to last.

"Now, Jun. Or we're both going to die."

Our bracelets pick that moment to chime. It sounds so weird, echoing off the walls like some sort of demented greeting.

"Answer that Jun, would you? I'm a little busy at the moment. And throw that damn bomb."

There's a choked sob in her voice as she triggers the com.

"Swan here!"

"Jun, we're coming! Is Joe with you? He's not answering."

"Hurry! Hurry, Ken!"

Lower my head, which is about all the energy I have left to try and speak into her com. "Move it, flyboy. I'm going to throw her up out of this hole in a minute and you'd better fucking be there to catch her."

"We're almost on top of you. Hold on."

Easy for him to say. But there's strength in his voice, in his words. He's coming. He'll save Jun.

"Throw the bomb, sweetheart."

"Joe, Ken's almost here! We'll get out of this."

"Jun. If you would just get off my arm, I could hang on longer." It's probably a lie but she doesn't know that.

It moves her like nothing else might have. "Close your eyes," she whispers. She fumbles at her belt and even though I'm ready for it, the swing of her arm nearly loses us our purchase.

There's an echoing explosion and razor sharp chips rain down on us. Think distantly that the noise should help Ken figure out where we are. I think I might even hear gunfire far up above us but I can't really tell with the blood thundering in my ears.

"Up, Jun. Tell Ken move his ass."

"Baka. Tell him yourself." Her lips brush my face, and then she's moving behind me, wrapping her arms carefully around my neck. It takes a second but then I understand she's trying to free my arm so I can use it to hold onto the birdrang. Manage to get my arm up to wrap my clumsy fingers around it, trying to remember how this is supposed to work.

There's something warm trickling down my arm. My fingers in the gloves, bleeding as the birdrang saws itself through the Birdstyle. I hope it's dark enough that she can't tell.

There's enough leverage now that she can climb on my shoulders, reaching for the hole somewhere above us.

"Joe, it's too far away!"

"Jump, Jun."

"Joe!"

"Damn it, Junie, just go!"

She's gone. Thrusting upwards in a single quick flight that nearly causes my wet fingers to lose their grip.

Look up but she's not falling back. There's a line of white braced on the wall, catching the light above. Whatever hole she's managed to create, she's made it.

And then above us, there's a blot of darkness.

"Hold on!" My fucking God, it's Ken. Always right to the goddamned wire.

"Hurry up!" I don't even think he can hear me. Look up one more time, just to make sure he's coming for Jun. My fingers slip, fall away, and I'm back to hanging by one hand. This time I don't think I can raise my arm again.

Look up one last time. He's rappelling down the side, some sort of rope letting him descend in leaping bounds. Jun is screaming something, but I can't tell what.

He's close enough to her that I know he's going to make it. And that's good because I can feel my fingers slipping for the final time. Think insanely that he's going to be pissed if I take his birdrang with me.

Then the world is falling darkness, a receding point of light. Funerary gas overwhelms me.

I'm sorry, Ken. I tried to hold on.

 

* * *

 

To say I'm surprised to wake up is the understatement of a lifetime.

Better yet, I'm not even in the hospital. Don't ask me how I know that before I even manage to peel my eyes open, but I do. Probably the lack of medicinal smell.

The thrumming underneath my head turns out be the engines of the 'Phoenix. Lift my eyes and I'm looking right at Ken.

The light in his eyes is blinding blue. His hair is still all fucked up and he's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Raise a hand without thinking about it, reaching for his face but I don't even get it up halfway before pain spikes through my shoulder. He grabs my hand as it starts to fall.

He's in his civvies. For that matter, so am I. He kneels down next to me so that I don't have to look up so far.

"What the fuck?" My voice comes out like an asthmatic frog.

"Joe." The look in his eyes is impossible to figure out. Realize dimly that I'm sitting up. They've got me tucked into my own chair, strapped into the emergency harness. They must have had to do a panic burnout.

"What the hell took you so long?"

"Next time, call for help a little faster. Shit, Joe, I'm not psychic."

"Why the hell not?"

Look around and Jun's crying. Jinpei looks like he's about to do the same. Ryu's flying but knowing the big man, he's probably a little sniffly too. Only Ken looks halfway unaffected. At least until you look at his eyes.

Pluck at my shirt with a couple of fingers. They hurt like hell but amazingly enough it looks like they're all still attached. "What's with the presto chango?"

"The helmet overloaded. We had to get it off you fast once we got you up and it was just easier to detrans. For some reason it pulled me into detrans too and I'm not going to mess with it anymore. We'll give the bracelets to Hakase to look at since something's obviously wired wrong. The field's are syncing or something."

His eyes lower, shuttering themselves briefly and I realize he's lying. Not about the need to get the helmet off me, but the reason for the detrans. It's for the others. For some reason he doesn't want them to know that we actually did switch bracelets.

Think incoherently that Jun knows already, but the thought fades away. It doesn't matter. I am just so glad that my one and only attempt at self sacrifice turned out to be a botch job.

"Next time Ken, don't wait so damned long to ignore my orders."

"Duly noted. Commander."

I'm laughing, everybody's laughing and it makes me cough weakly. "Fuck. Next time I end up in white, I'm going to throw myself into the nearest pit first thing and have done."

"Hey, it's not that bad!" He's still holding my hand, gently so that my fingers don't hurt more than a category six hurricane.

"Says you, flyboy."

He grins at me and rises to his feet. Try not to mind the loss of his hand on mine as his fingers fall away. "You're not getting out of the best part though."

"What's that?"

"You get to write this mission's debrief report."

"Fuck, no!"

"Fuck, yes. Jinpei, you can stop laughing now." The kid must be busting a gut in the corner.

"Shit, Ken, that's not fair!"

"Welcome to the wonderful world of command, Joe. I'm sure it'll be a great report."

Look at my hands in my lap. Not only are they black from before, now I've got serious looking friction cuts from hanging onto the damn birdrang. I'll be lucky if I don't end up having to write the report with a pen in my teeth.

"You're taking dictation, Ken," I warn softly.

His hand falls on my shoulder. "Sure thing."

 

* * *

 

He's finally sleeping.

Too deep for nightmares, the tumble of his hair has fallen across his face like a shadow, clouding the ragged line of his closed eyes.

His hands are a mess. Hakase wanted to keep him in medical overnight but Joe wasn't having anything to do with that, not that I could blame him. He walked out while the medical staff was still bleating and for once nobody made the mistake of getting in his way.

So we're at my place, the medicine to speed his recovery in three bottles lined up carefully on my kitchen counter.

He took the pills too, which tells me just how badly he's hurt himself.

He took me at my word and dictated his report to me. I've got four pages of carefully handwritten notes, distilled from Joe's rather interesting way of expressing himself. 'The fucking Galactor captain and his damned jock strap problem' ended up becoming 'leader of the enemy forces." The rest of it was an equally interesting exercise in translation.

I'll work on it tomorrow and then I'll make him sign it. His hands should be functional by then, anyways.

That's twice now I've almost lost him.

Look over but he's still dead asleep at the other end of my couch.

Get up as slowly as I can, not wanting to disturb him. He doesn't even twitch. The paper goes onto the table, followed by the pen and my empty coffee cup.

I can't lose him.

There's a raw taste in the back of my throat. Jun is screaming, telling me to get Joe first. There's no time to warn Ryu because Joe is already falling, arcing down into red shot darkness. White against black, a guttering spark.

And God help me, I'm following. The line of cable at my waist cut away in an instant, my hands reaching out because there's no choice at all. I can't let him fall. I can't lose him.

Not even sure now how I caught him, fired the cable gun, anything. It's all missing until Ryu hauls us out of the hole, only to find Joe's not breathing. Ripping the bracelets off so I can get to him, force breath into his lungs. Again and again until his life stutters again, until blood runs through his veins in its accustomed rush of hot fury.

Joe.

I'm moving before I even think about it. Lean over and look at him like I can memorize his face, even though I can't. Something in his bones always eludes me, always surprises me with something new each time I look at him.

He won't know. He's so far asleep that an earthquake won't raise him back from this little death.

Lean down, ghost my lips above his. Breath once again, this time not for life, but for love. A kiss. As without knowing, in his sleep this morning, he kissed me.

"Ken."

Pull back in shocked surprise but he's still sleeping. Something tight in his face eases as I watch and a moment later he's still again.

Dare to reach out and touch his hair.

"Sleep, Joe."

And he does.

 


End file.
